16/06/11: Teaching, oh baby! / How I am indebted to Justin Bieber

Early this morning Irma Agnes took me down to the Primary School and explained how I would begin teaching a class from 10-11:30 every day. She told me that I could teach them pretty much whatever I wanted, be it music, P.E., or mathematics, etc. This was a relief; if I didn’t have to focus only on music, I could definitely come up with a ton more of activities and things to teach. And when do I start? Today, of course! More accurately, in two hours. It’s strange how time works: the study hall sessions yesterday were some of the longest two hours of my life whereas the next two, in which I had to prepare my first lesson, were easily some of the shortest. When 10:00 came, I went to class armed with “Bon Dia a Voce/Good Morning to You” (sung in the tune of “Happy Birthday”), “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” (thanks Brittany!), and “Pato, Pato, Ganso” (Duck, Duck, Goose). Turns out this wasn’t nearly enough for the hour and a half, but the kids were super enthusiastic and engaged and ready to repeat stuff over and over (I must have played the accompanying “Good Morning to You” chords on my mandolin about 25 times for them to sing the song to everybody in the class). For the first class, it went pretty well. I was definitely in dire need of more ideas though so, as you all well know, I sent out requests for help on this blog, gmail, and facebook, and (thank you all so much!!!) over the next few days received tons of great suggestions.
I was asked to supervise another study hall in the afternoon (just as wonderful a time as yesterday) but in the evening things got much better. It was Irma Claudina’s birthday so Irma Agnes had asked if I could play along on my mandolin as the girls sang Happy Birthday to her. I had only burned the chords into my muscle memory that morning so I was more than happy to oblige. So, after a special dinner, we performed Happy Birthday, the Luara Vicuna song, and then another number we had learned while rehearsing before dinner: Baby. Turns out the chords to this Biebtastic number are ridiculously simple which is convenient because it’s probably the most popular song at this mission after Waka Waka. When I showed the girls I knew how to play it, they got really excited and made up their own dance to go with it (which I later apparently got credit for teaching them). Being able to play and sing song definitely won me a lot of popularity among the girls here at the mission. It was a festive night, only enhanced by the lunar eclipse.